Browser Piracy Virus

The message, "Access to your computer was denied. Illegally downloaded music tracks (in other words, 'pirated copies') have been detected on your PC", appears when browsing the Internet and is a scam. It is a ransomware virus that affects Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. This rogue pop-up is created by cyber criminals in the hope that unsuspecting Internet users will fall for the fake message and pay a $100 USD or 100 Euro bogus fine using Paysafecard. The fine is purportedly for the user having pirated copies of music files (that were supposedly detected) on their computers. In fact, paying this fine is equivalent to sending money directly to cyber criminals.

Computer users should be aware that no authorities worldwide use pop-up messages such as this to collect fines for any law violations. Cyber criminals merely exploit the names of the FBI, AKM, SABAM, GVU, PRS, and many others in order to lend authenticity to their rogue messages. This fake message is categorized as ransomware, however, at the time of research, it did not block users' attempts to close the browser window containing the fake message. At this time it is not clear whether cyber criminals have deliberately not implemented browser locking using Java script (as seen in other browser locking ransomware), or whether this ransomware is still in the development stage. Commonly, this ransomware is proliferated using malicious or hacked websites.

At the time of research, this scam did not use any rogue Java scripts to block users' attempts to close their Internet browsers or opened tabs. Computer users who discover these fake pop-up messages should ignore them and close their Internet browsers.

After the fake scan, users are presented with a message demanding payment of a $100 USD or 100 Euro fine to avoid a criminal case. At the time of research, cyber criminals were targeting 13 countries with localized variants of their fake messages: United States, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, and Portugal.

I am passionate about computer security and technology. I have an experience of 10 years working in various companies related to computer technical issue solving and Internet security. I have been working as an editor for pcrisk.com since 2010. Follow me on Twitter to stay informed about the latest online security threats.

Our guides are free. However, if you want to support us you can send us a donation.